Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,Or close the wall up with rebooted dead!... I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,Straining upon the start. The game's afoot!Follow your spirit; and upon this chargeCry 'Long Live the Legion! Annotate on!'

So, 11 months later we finally have issue 5 of "Legion of 3 Worlds".

Doing these annotations has been fun for me, trying to see what I can remember with my aging feeble mind, but I have had to look a lot of stuff up. It would have been next to impossible without the internet. And of course, you guys, who help me with what I didn't get. So thanks for playing along, we'll do one more shot at this.

Page 1

Superman, L1 Lightning Lad, L1 Saturn Girl and L1 Cosmic Boy at Vanishing Point at the end of time as scenes from the Legion's past appear (as seen via cover shots). Clockwise from upper left: the war between Krypton and Earth (ADV 333); Triplicate Girl's death at the tentacles of Computo (ADV 340); Polar Boy leads the new Legionnaires (which issue is this?); the rebooted L2 Legion (LSH v4 0); Darkseid (Great Darkness Saga TPB); Superboy joins the Legion (ADV 247); Rokk restarts the Legion (LSH v4 1); the SW6 Legionnaires appear (LGS 1); the Legion vs the Sun-Eater (ADV 352); Superboy right before his death (LSH v3 37); the L.E.G.I.O.N. (L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 1).

Page 2

Superboy/Conner fights Superboy-Prime with L2 and L3 Ultra Boys.

Page 3

L2 Andromeda, Superboy, L1 Polar Boy, L2 Wildfire, and XS along with Sodam Yat and the whole brand new freakin' Green Lantern Corps (or are those just constructs?). Bart and Conner were members of the Teen Titans prior to Final Crisis; Conner was a Titan when he traveled to the future and became a Legionnaire.

Page 4

Panel 1: L1 Mon-El vs Superboy-Prime in the 31st century, Superman and L1 Lightning Lad vs Time Trapper at the end of time.

Panel 3: A Dominator appears through a rift in reality. This is the panel that makes the rest of the story possible - a way to access every parallel universe and every Legion that's ever existed. Right at this panel I knew my annotating skills were going to be put to the test later.

Panel 9: In Final Crisis, Superboy (Conner) died in the arms of his girlfriend Wonder Girl.

Page 8

Panel 4: Now it gets interesting. What they do to Superboy-Prime in the 31st century affects him at Vanishing Point, although the synchronization of things in two different time periods always makes my brain hurt.

Panel 9: The Time Trapper's story is retconned, but in the sense of "what you saw before was true but there's more to it". L1 Brainy theorizes that the Trapper is a "sentient alternate timeline rebelling against ours. His own history changes, I'd guess even his identity could alter, as the true timeline marches on."

Panel 11: L1 Cosmic Boy is about to give me a headache in a few pages...

Page 9

the L1 Legion founders link their powers to send a multi-universal distress signal. Interestingly, in panel 8, the years in which Saturn Girl sends out her signals are going forward, from 3058 to 3104 A.D., instead of backwards to 3009 (or so).

Page 10-11

I think I actually yelled "Yeah!" when I saw this. Then I said "oh shit I'm going to have to identify all of them for the annotations." We've got multiple versions of the same Legionnaires - I think Perez just wanted to draw every costume variation ever. And they did say we'd see everyone who was ever a Legionnaire (though this also includes some from the L.E.G.I.O.N, the Legion Academy, and other associates too). Let's see how well I do. Roughly top to bottom in columns, then left to right:

Saturn Queen, Cosmic King, Chameleon Chief, Radiation Roy, Spider-Girl, Tharok, and Echo(?) watch as Mysa absorbs Mordru's magicks (and by extension, those of Kinetix from Universe-247). She wins, but at the cost of turning her from White magic to Black.

Panel 6: L1 Duplicate Damsel! That's new, although Geoff Johns mentioned this at the Legion panel at the 2008 San Diego con.

Q: Will we see more of the Legion Subs?A: Johns kind of sidestepped that one, but said that (he paused at this point, and said "what the hell, I'll spoil it here") he had big plans for Luornu (who he suggested be called "Una Damsel"): "I don't know how I got anything done with just three of me". She will be called Duplicate Damsel and can multiply into many, not just three.

Page 15:

Panel 2: That's Phase and Garv from the L.E.G.I.O.N.

Panel 3: This must be the 1960s-era Supergirl. She has the big "S" logo, so it's not the Crisis-era or 1970s hot-pants era, and it's not the crop-top Supergirl who was with the L3 Legion.

And that's it for the alternate versions. Back to regular L1, L2, and L3 now.

Page 17:

Back in the L1 31st century. Superboy-Prime is an idiot.

Page 18:

Oh, Brainy says the same thing. Good-bye to Time Trapper and Superboy-Prime, for now.

Huh. We're 18 pages into a 32-page story and the big fight is over already. Now comes 14 pages of wrap-up and set-up.

Page 19:

"The future is always open, nothing is ever set in stone." Pretty much sums it up for the Legion's history, doesn't it?

Page 20:

I called it after Dan Didio's 20 questions the other day. Superboy-Prime is back home on Earth-Prime. I wonder if his family had to wait so long for the conclusion of this mini-series? So much for trying to redeem him.

Panel 9: So Earth-Prime is one of the 52 Earths that were reborn after Final Crisis and 52.

Page 25:

Panel 1: That settles that. The L3 Legion is the future of Earth-Prime. A few years ago, I noted that we had seen a backup story in which old DC comics were seen and were a part of the plot. At the time, I tried to explain it as the future of a new Earth-2, but that's because we didn't know about the newly revived Earth-Prime yet. So I should get partial credit for catching that.

Panel 5: Didn't Livewire get his original arm back?

Panel 6: The L2 Legion, who no longer have a universe to go back to, are going out into the multiverse. Kid Quantum misspeaks the name "Shikari".

Page 26

Panels 4-5: Arguably the two most favorite L2 Legionnaires are staying with the L1 Legion, XS and Gates.

Panels 6-8: It's comedy gold when three Brainiac 5's argue.

Page 27

Panel 1: Long Live the Legion!

Sometime in here, I'm not exactly sure when, L1 Brainiac 5 shows Superman the Miracle Machine so he can use it when he gets back to the 21st century to help out at the end of Final Crisis (that happened in issue 6 back in January; that issue was supposed to come out after this issue of L3W.)

Page 28

Superboy and Kid Flash return to the present and meet their fellow Titans.

Page 29-30

The meta-commentary here is that the former Superboy-Prime is now just a guy living in his parents basement, surrounded by comics and trolling message boards. The "Can Superboy Prime be redeemed?" thread on the DC Message Board is a real one (and now has someone posting as Superboy Prime). It was pointed out there that the Earth-Prime version of this issue has page 29 on the left side of the page (as shown on page 30), while our version has page 29 on the right.

THE END... for now.

So, some plot points that are ready for a new Legion series:1. The Black Witch and Sorcerer's World2. What happened to Luornu that she's now Duplicate Damsel?3. Karate Kid III and Lythyl4. Earth's new Green Lantern5. Where are Chameleon Boy, Dream Girl, Element Lad, Matter-Eater Lad, Quislet, Sensor Girl, Tellus, and Tyroc?6. What is Brande's top secret mission for Starman in the 21st century?7. The L2 Legion is going wandering into the multiverse in search of other survivors from the long-dead parallel Earths.

49 comments:

Page 25: I remember that same backup story with the comic books and even then thought, "Is this some kind of Earth-Prime Legion?" I caught how the Earth-Prime Element Lad's Kryptonite hurt Superboy-Prime when I read the previous issue.

the years in which Saturn Girl sends out her signals are going forward, from 3058 to 3104 A.D., instead of backwards to 3009 (or so).

Those years are significant because 1958 (3058) was the year the Legion debuted, 1989 (3089) was the beginning of the five years later legion, 1994 (3094) was the first reboot, and 2004 (3104) was the threeboot.

Wow -- great work annotating the entire series! You should treat yourself to a really extravagant dinner as a reward!

A comment on the series itself: I know on the messages boards that people were complaining that it wasn't really a Legion story and/or that it was too good to be a Final Crisis story.

I had some of the same thoughts: the only significant Legion players are the 3 founders, Brainy, Dawny, Wildfire, Mysa and to a lesser extent, Dirk, Polar Boy and Thom. Everything else was about Supes, Prime, Bart, Connor, and GL. The fact that we get a "Titans Together" cheer really made it seem as though the LSH weren't the stars of their own magazine.

But then I realized that the "Titans Together" cheer is what proves that it really is a Final Crisis story. It's just FC playing out in the 31st century. But it truly was designed to cover several bases of the DCU: The Supes world, the Flash world, the GL world and the Titans world as well as the LSH world(s). So it makes more sense now.

One weird thing about the series: did they really just do away with Trapper and Mordru in the 31st century? (Or will TT keep coming back in new alternate reality forms?) Someone on one of the message boards complained that the problem with most of the reboots is that they never introduced any worthy villains. And now Johns has removed two of the most important. Strange choice....

Page 9, Panel 8 - Something interesting about the dates: 3058 (1958, first Legion appearance), 3089 (1989, beginning of 5YL and L.E.G.I.O.N.), 3094 (1994 reboot) 3104 (2004 3-boot) is that they're all 1100 years off as opposed to 1000, but that could just be a lettering mistake.

Page 10-11 - Your first unknown is Shadow Lad; the guy in the center is definitely Captain Comet; in your final bullet you mistakenly list Chlorophyl Kid as "Plant Lad"; the 101st that you missed is Shrinking Violet in her purple reboot costume, behind the caption (you can see her boot and fist)

Page 12, panel 1 - I want to say that's a mis-colored Night Girl (though for half a second I thought it was an unmasked Satan Girl!)

Silver Age Lad: yes, that's Capt. Comet's new costume. I knew that wasn't L3 Colossal Boy but I couldn't remember who else it might have been. Yes, it might be Comet Queen, but exnihil said I also missed Shrinking Violet, which would make 102. I'll have to check with Scott Koblish.

Murray: I noticed those years as significant in their last 2 digits, it was the 1100 years difference that threw me off.

Nathan: My first thought was that it was from the Subs Special, but Polar Boy was wearing a different costume there. I couldn't find a cover shot to match - it's because it's not from a cover, as exnihil says.

Brainypirate: Time Trapper can always come back, and Mordru can come back after Mysa kicks him out (or some such handwaving).

exnihil: Thanks for the Subs ID. I thought that was Satan Girl for a moment too. And I thought the glowing girl might have been Beauty Blaze but I didn't think the costumes matched up.

Keith: Did you notice how the GL ring said it found someone, and then we cut to Sun Boy?

Page 23, Panel 5: It's Magog, not Blue Devil. You can see that from the type of horns. Remember that DC is definitely building him to be a big player at DCU.Page 24: Good catch indeed. The plot was introduced by Shooter in his toying with Projectra.

Three comments:

- Has real-time chronology been reestablished by Johns after that time counting effect?- Isn't Earth-Prime a kind of another Earth that exists APART from all other 52 Earths because it is real?- Apparently not only the 52 earths are not the limit anymore, but there is a whole multiverse out of those 52 Earths. Welcome back, old DCU.

And 2 plot points still open:

- Whatever happened to all those other characters not from L2 or L3? If TMK still exists, where are they? And why was L.E.G.I.O.N. summoned?- What or (better yet) when was supposed to happen the "cut" into L1 storyline that created Johnsboot?

And finally why was it really necessary to pull the plug on L3 like it was? From this story, nothing seemed really necessary UNLESS Shooter himself wanted to wrap up his story by showing L3 to be Earth-Prime. This will never be solved...

I don't know why the recent Legion reboots didn't quite work for me, but I suspect it's because of Chuck Taine's absence (or near to wallpaper role), so, needless to say, I'm glad to see him back and hoping he's back to stay!!

(BTW, this third honeymoon with multiplicate Luornu sounds like it's been a lot of fun)

I was glad to see all of the Legions, as I have felt that the TMK Legion was getting the shaft. As to what world they're from, it probably won't matter because we'll never see them again, but I always felt they should be from the magic Earth-33 (I think), since magic played such a big part of that series. After all, Glorith was a sorceress who favored time magicks.

Great annotations! I'm still going through them, but did want to say that the "unnamed academy member" from column seven of the big double page spread is named Urk. I believe he was only named when the big Giffen Legion poster from the 80's was annotated in the Great Darkness Saga trade.

on the doubletruck: i agree with exnihil that that's grev on the left, (blue/black pants) but disagree with you about the little tigery feet nest to him; THAT would be bloodclaw (had to DIG to find a drawing with his legs in...) if the one you're reading as him on the other side is the black clunky boots/leggings, i think that's LOBO. i also think the flamy guy (hee hee) is wildfire from the quislet-assisted energy form era.

i'm joining the subs for tomorrow's review podcast, (YAY!) and i'm thinking that the long priapic squeeeeee that is this spread will be a highlight for all of us.

Well, as we all suspected since wayyy back during The Lightning Saga, the original Legion has been re-established as the main Legion of the main DCU -- and I'm thrilled. :)

One thing that was nice about this... unboot?... was that Geoff had enough courtesy for Legion history to at least keep the other two Legions in existence (post-ZH Legion travelling the multiverse and threeboot Legion going home to Earth Prime) -- instead of erasing them with a bright white light, or sucking them into a empty void of doom. And as Geoff said in an interview today at SDCC, we'll be seeing all the Legions at one point or another in Adventure Comics. :)

Peter: the tiger-legs in the upper left is from the red-skinned girl on the cover of LSH v3 #14. And while I'm there, the green stumpy guy on the cover is the one whose hand is on the lower left corner of page 11 next to v4 Laurel Gand. The flamey guy on the left looks more like Fire Lad than late v3 Wildfire, though.

I was too lazy to look up whether the guy in the lower right next to Tyroc is Firefist or Bloodclaw. And you're right, those boots do look like Lobo's.

i've always read that green/silver stumpy guy as one of quislet's 'constructs'... i don't see quis' logo on it, so i could be wrong... will dig out the issue and report back i i find anything interesting... and to continue to disagree (hopefully agreeably... isn't it nice to have this to argue about?); ref bloodclaw at cosmic teams:

Enjoyed LO3W. However, little disappointed that they never explained why KK I was resurrected or what Una was doing in Countdown. With the Duplicate Damsel threat , hopefully there these points will be addressed in an issue of Adventure.

ti-grrl had time for a costume change between the cover and the book; inside she's bare (red) legged with gold boots w/ a swirly cutout. in her three big panels. four if you count the voting board.

in this gem of an issue we also get to thrill to:• energy boy (who i had forgotten about - conflating him with the westerner)• dev-em's bad self• SPACE FISHIES! (who i had also forgotten about - conflating them with urk)• shady's perm-helmet, which is AWESOME because steve lightle is AWESOME!• overheard at dinner (p11): "please, sir-- i prefer my bear."

I disliked it a great deal. There were good bits like getting a one panel revival of the TMK era and Superboy-Prime hating his future self. But there were more bad than good. Tons of non-sensical retcons. The storyline going from trying to redeem Superboy to pretty much just a big fight. Why would the Legion bother to revive Connor and Bart? What role did they play in the story? For that matter what role did Superman play?

Amazing annotations as always, Michael! Just a few additions/observations:

Page 2• Panel 1: L1 Atmos is shown in the cosmic rift next to the Time Trapper's boot. Dagon the Avenger (v1) is shown in the one next to Superman.

Page 6• Panel 3: I think Terrus' insect make-up is a result of Mysa's magic. I seem to remember her doing something like that back in the Giffen era.• Panel 5: I don't think the implication is that the LSV has been brought back to life (fast forward to Imra's concern that they've broken the Legion code after the Primes punch each other out of reality). The Legions had simply beaten them into submission, with Mordru's magics reviving their strength.• Panel 6: that's definitely L3 Timber Wolf getting blasted.

Pages 10-11: (apologies if others have noted some of these already)• The "unknown blue pants" are definitely the blue skin & boots of L1 Shadow Kid.• The "unknown fire guy" is absolutely L1 Fire Lad in his Giffen-era Subs uniform (all the rest of the Subs are shown here in their costumes from the Subs Special as well). • Celeste's Green Lantern-powered codename is Neon.• That sure looks like Comet Queen's flight path to me. Starshine!• I'm going to assume that the black cape seen at the bottom left behind the ""unknown silver hand" and v4 Laurel Gand belongs to a member of the Mallor family (possibly even Lyrissa or Lydea from L.E.G.I.O.N.). Does that make 103?• If memory serves, the "unknown gold container" next to Mon-Elis a version of Computo, from the Polar Boy as leader/new chunky costumes/pre-Magic War v1 era.• I agree that it's L1 Magnetic Kid over Kent Shakespeare rather than another L1 Cosmic Boy (it would make sense as all 4 of the other "new recruits" are shown in this spread too). • I also agree that's L1 Ferro Lad rather than L2 Ferro (the other L1 dead Legionnaires are also all here).• Where's Mentalla? Where's Lamprey? Where's Nightwind? Where's Antenna Lad? Where's Double-Header? Where are the modern-era Subs (especially Rainbow Girl)?

Page 14• Panel 3: the "unknown glowing girl" is Beauty Blaze and I'm pretty sure that's Ol-Vir in the purple (with mis-colored hair) instead of Tusker (who looks much more stocky/brutish now than he did in v1.)

Page 15• Panel 5: the "unknown" next to Blok is some version of Shadow Lass.• Panel 6: the "unknown woman" is Kinetix in her original costume (note the green blast)

Page 25:• Panel 2: who's that with the long white hair and cape with his/her back to us on the L2 Legion's treadmill? Also, who's that kneeling helping Gear?

Page 29:• Panel 7: what horrible deed has Prime done to Lori that he's also threatening to do to his parents?

But then who is the blond girl that Supergirl addresses as "Cassie" on page 28 and that Superboy is embracing on page 29? Is that Wonder Girl? Then who is the brunette that looks like Donna Troy on those pages?

Darnit! Bryan-Mitchell raised a really good point about the plot of the series: Given the way the SBP story resolved, did they really need Bart and Conner at all? I guess Conner at least helped reveal the nature of the Trapper by scarring his chest, but couldn't one of the Mon-El's have done that instead? And what did Bart contribute?

In other words, I don't see how Bart and Conner contributed to Brainy's plans if all that was needed was to get enough firepower from all the remaining LSH's to knock TT out long enough to bring him into contact with SBP.

Interesting. It seems that their presence here really was more about the rest of the DCU than about what was needed to resolve the SBP storyline here.

Bart and Conner freaked S-P out and threw him off balance? That'd be my guess as to Brainy's thinking. Additionally, Brainy knew that Bart, Conner and Sodam Yat had all been instrumental in S-P's defeats in the past; note that he specifically brings those three together again.

"If memory serves, the "unknown gold container" next to Mon-Elis a version of Computo, from the Polar Boy as leader/new chunky costumes/pre-Magic War v1 era."

Personally I think it looks extremely much like a miscolored "Unknown" from the Legion Academy.

As for the unidentified character along with GL Alan Scott and Raven at the end that would be the Green Lantern magic named Torquemeda (who was seen along with Alan Scott in the Origins and Omens story in Green Lantern Corps I belive)

Also as for Valor, based on the costume he is wearing I think he should actually be named M'Onel (the name he took for himself) as he appears in this issue.

Was Superboy-Prime really powerless at the end of the story? I thought his eyes glowing red implied he was still powerful (in some fashion), and his threat "Remember what I did to Lori?" indicated his parents were powerless against him (as would be the police).

@ Jonathan Miller: I think that's EXACTLY what Brainy had planned. He knows that S-Prime was mentally unstable and the incusion of those three (Conner, Bart, Sodam) would be enough to throw him off his game.

On page 3, the "Green Lantern Corps" are all green and glowing, so definitely ring constructs.

On page 10, the only one I know with a silver hand with no fingers like that is Rom: Spaceknight. Doubtful! The legs and green body suit at the top of column 2 is a late 1960s Shrinking Violet; you can tell by the scale, since she's small but in front of Power Boy. In column 3, that is L1 Ferro Lad; L2 has bumps on his faceplate. And in column 4, that's the SW6 Inferno; L2 Inferno is female.

On page 15, panel 5, you like totally missed Comet Queen.

Page 20: Lori and Jerri, vs. Laurie and Jerry? Two typos, or a clue that this ain't quite the right Earth?

Page 22, panel 13: that's Legion HQ being rebuilt.

Page 25, panel 2: between L3 Val and Lu being here and Duplicate Damsel's comment about her other self dying, please put a stake through the heart of the idea that it was the L3 KK/DD who died in Countdown!